Archive for September 2nd, 2013

Travesty of truth and distortion of history for Nazri to claim that Tanda Putera is well-researched movie and May 13, 1969 riots was caused by Chinese

It is a travesty of the truth and distortion of history for the Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz to claim that Tanda Putera is a well-researched movie and that the May 13, 1969 racial riots was caused by the Chinese.

No well-researched and historically-faithful movie would have succumbed to flights of wild imagination as to create the fictitious urination scene by Chinese youths at the flag-pole of the well-guarded Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence as one of causes provoking the May 13 racial riots – reckless of the racial misunderstanding, hatred and conflict that could be generated today after 44 years by this totally fictitious episode and downright lie.

Similarly, no well-researched and historically-faithful movie would have concocted a total lie, noted by Free Malaysia Today journalist K. Pragalath in his film review “Tanda Putera falls flat”, where he observed:

“Tanda Putera opens with a dramatic scene of an incident where DAP campaign workers kill an Umno campaign helper two weeks prior to the general election then.”

This is not history but pure fiction – nay, it is unadulterated evil, wicked falsehood and a treacherous and treasonous tale, for there was simply no such incident in 1969 where “DAP campaign workers kill an Umno campaign helper two weeks prior to the general election then”. Read the rest of this entry »

25 Comments

The Malaysia 3G

BY REHMAN RASHID
SPECIAL TO THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
September 02, 2013

It is called the “Third-Generation Curse”, and it is known to every emigrant family in a world now built on them as much as by them. The first generation begins with nothing and makes something of it; the second generation builds on that to create an institution; the third blows it all away.

Survive the Third-Generation Curse, the patriarchs tell their scions, and you are set, not just for your life but those of our descendants, and our ancestors shall smile upon you. If not, scavengers will pick through the rubble of our ruined house and having our name expunged from history would be a mercy.

“British Malaya” patently failed to survive its own 3G Curse, and out of the rubble of colonialism Malaysia’s first generation assembled a working model of self-governance for a hopelessly divided polity: to each of us our own house, with each of our heads of household mandated to deal with the others in a Council of Elders.

It was a realistic model for the time, working with rooted socio-economic realities and disdaining the revolutionary, year-zero, blank-slate, non-aligned thinking rampant in the post-colonial world of the 1950s. It was a grand enough achievement for Malaysia’s Gen1 to have attained Independence by common consensus, courtly handshakes and a parade of feathered hats, with the bloodshed confined to beating down Communism. It was left to Gen2 to deal with the ensuing chaos. Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments